n uneasy calm prevailed at Chitradurga’s famous Murugha matha this past weekend, shaken as it was by allegations that the 64-year-old pontiff, Shivamurthy Murugha Sharanaru, had sexually assaulted two minor girls who had been staying in a hostel run by the matha. The pontiff was arrested on September 1, nearly a week after an FIR was registered against him following the testimony of the two teenagers, aged 15 and 16. The alleged sexual abuse, one of them said in the complaint, had taken place over a period of three years. While the police faced criticism for delaying the
